Mermaid Pendant
by Yotsubadancesintherain5
Summary: Twelve glimpses into blossoming love. Or: how twelve people find the person they love.
1. Sebastian

**A/N: Originally posted on Febuary 25 2018 to March 15 2018**

**When I first started playing Stardew Valley I was surprised to find that I wanted to see all of the heart events. Usually I focus on one character and go from there, but not so with this game. I thought it would be fun to write out the scenes, with different "players" as it were. Obviously some parts will be a little different, but not drastically so, and I plan to keep the chapters in mostly, if not, equal length.**

Sebastian felt soreness creep up into his shoulders but he couldn't stop now. He got into the groove of his work, and it was almost done. If he broke the flow now it would hinder his progress. He finally finished the last bit of code when someone knocked on his door.

"Come in," he called, and he was a little surprised to see that it was the farmer, Andre.

"Hello," said Andre. He went over to the computer and looked at the screen. "What are you doing?"

"Working on a project," Sebastian replied. "It's for a client."

A message from Sam popped up, asking to hang out. Sebastian's energy dipped even lower, and then he felt a wave of guilt.

Just then his mom called out, "Sebastian, stop playing on the computer and go out with your friends."

"I'm almost done with my work," he called back, empathizing the word "work." He added quietly, "Why don't they understand I'm working?"

It was quiet for a while, so Sebastian was surprised again when Andre spoke.

"Don't go to grandfather's farm," said Andre, nagging in his voice, "Go get a job at Joja, it's good money."

He made a noise of disgust. "Sebastian, keep doing what makes you happy, okay?"

Sebastian looked back at his screen, a strange sense of rejuvenation rising up within him. "Okay."

Andre stayed and listened to Sebastian's explanations of the various codes. Sebastian made a mental note to make a space in his schedule to visit the farm sometime.


	2. Abigail

The game-over music played, tauntingly, and Abigail groaned. She tossed the controller onto the floor.

"That's it, I'm never playing this game again," she said. The music eventually got to her and she picked up the controller to start over. Before long, her little cowboy fell down and the game-over screen appeared. Abigail's annoyed groan was loud, louder than the knock on her door.

"Abigail? Are you okay?"

"Ellie," Abigail replied, "Come in."

The door opened and Ellie walked into the room. She sat down beside Abigail.

"Oh, what are you playing?"

"Journey of the Prairie King," Abigail said. "But it's too hard. I can't even get past the first screen!"

"I know what you mean," Ellie replied. "I was never good at those kind of games. You know, having to beat enemies within a time limit.'

She looked at the console, longingly. "I do miss playing games, though..."

"I have an extra controller," Abigail said. "We can play together."

Ellie's face lit up with a smile and she eagerly took the second controller. There was a lot of yelling at the screen, and encouragement, and finally the ending music blared triumphantly.

Abigail put down her controller, and she was happy in spite of her sore hands.

"That was fun," she said, though fun didn't encompass the joy she felt. "Thanks for playing with me. We should do this again sometime."

Ellie smiled. "I'd like that."

**A/N: ****A lot of people think that gaming is a waste of time, but obviously I disagree. I've made many friends by gaming! ****  
****One of my favorite memories from gaming is when I was helping my friend get through Flowey's battle and she watched with a bunch of my other friends. They all screamed at me to not die whenever I got low on health and to hurry to the healing items when I called for "help," to which I yelled back, "Stop yelling at me!" It was a lot of fun! I actually got to the sixth soul before I finally died.**


	3. Elliot

Elliot pushed on the door of the bar. He'd finished a rather lengthy chapter of his novel, having worked on it for the entire day, and it would be okay to indulge in a cup of alcohol. The bar was lively, a little stuffy, and Elliot saw Amélie sitting alone at one of the tables. She was eating a salad, and he walked over to the table.

"Hello, Amélie," Elliot said. "Are you finished with work? Are you well?"

Amélie covered her mouth and swallowed the portion in her mouth. "I'm good. I managed to get some seeds before Pierre closed for the day, so I'm done. You?"

"I'm well. It's all well. I'm happy that I'm done with my chapter. Let's celebrate, would you like a drink?"

"Mmmh, okay," Amélie said. "Since I'm eating a salad, how about wine?"

"Fine choice." Elliot smiled, and went to the counter for the order. He came back with the order and gave her the wine. Elliot raised up his ale.

"A toast to..."

"Our friendship," Amélie declared, and they clinked their glasses together.

Elliot hadn't realized it before, but Amélie's grin was pretty adorable; unfortunately, the grin was replaced with a grimace when she took a sip of her wine.

"It's a lot sweeter than I expected," she said.

Elliot almost said something cheesy, even by his standards. But he replied instead that the ale was more bitter than he expected.

The aftermath of a hard day's work of writing was better spent with a good friend.


	4. Leah

**A/N**: **Some canon-typical violence and canon mentioned unhealthy relationship here.**

Leah hoped to never hear that voice again, a voice laced with sweetened malice. Kel's disposition hadn't changed even after all this time.

And Kel had already been here, at the art show, perusing the art pieces she once vilified. Though Kel's warfare never contained physical violence, Leah was glad that Agatha was here. She stood as a sort of barrier, but her stance was all wrong. Her elbows were high up and completely exposed her susceptible ribs. Though she had muscles from farm work they didn't mean anything if she didn't know how to use them.

"Let's try to work something out," Agatha said.

Kel rushed towards Agatha but Leah was quicker. Her fist connected with the woman's nose, making a hard cracking noise. Kel took a staggering step back before collapsing, blood slithering down her face. Leah's knuckles smarted and for a brief moment she internally panicked.

Agatha took charge and went to pick up the unconscious woman.

"Let's take her to Harvey's," she said.

As they walked Leah said, "I owe you another picnic."

"I'll take the fall for this," Agatha said, getting to the heart of the matter.

Leah shook her head. "I'm not gonna run away; from this, or my feelings for you."

Agatha didn't argue, and it was a relief for Leah. It was a desperately needed breath of fresh air to feel like her wishes were consistently respected.

**A/N: Though it's not optimal weather, I usually picture this heart event happening when it's raining. Very dramatic.**

**Here's the dark version:  
"Agatha took charge and went to pick up the unconscious woman. 'Let's throw her in the river,' she said."  
Sorry, it just popped into my head when I wrote that part and I thought it was hilarious.**


	5. Emily

Emily took in a deep breath and turned on the music player. It took a few seconds to warm up and then it began playing a jaunty tune.

She closed her eyes and let the music wash over her. She remembered what Theodore's presence meant in her dream and let it guide the movements of her dance.

Her pet parrot called at choice parts in the music. It'd taken a long while for the bird to learn how to do this, but treats were a good lure. Emily let the love she had for her pet enter the motions of her dance.

Emily heard the tape run out and she breathed, opening her eyes. Theodore began to clap and Emily smiled tiredly.

"That was amazing!" Theodore exclaimed. He added, after a few deliberating seconds, "I'd like to dance with you sometime. At the saloon?"

"Sure," Emily said. "But not when I'm working, okay?"

Theodore opened his mouth and then closed it; at her puzzled look he said, "I was gonna say a joke but I realized it didn't make any sense."

"Go on."

"But Gus lets you dance with your parrot during working hours, right? Heh, heh, um, anyway!" Theodore's voice was slightly jumbled up, "Where did you get the parrot? I haven't seen it before."

"It was in a flock of my other parrot friends," Emily said. She held out her arm for the bird and let it climb on. "It hit the window and got hurt. So I helped it, but now I think it wants to stay."

Theodore reached out and gently scratched the parrot's chin with his thumb. It chirruped contentedly.

"You're really kind, Emily."

Emily smiled. Someday she'd tell him about the dream, the one that entwined their destinies.

**A/N: ****I'm not sure about anybody else, but Emily's first and second heart event seemed kind of sparse, at least in regards to getting close to you. I guess the ten heart event more than makes up for it though!**


	6. Shane

It was a long way to get to this feeling. All of the meetings and the slow wean into drinking water instead of beer. The loss of having to depend on alcohol was liberating.

Shane had led Mimi to the chicken coop to show her this phenomena. There were chickens that were born with naturally blue feathers; a break-through in animal genetics, or something like that. Shane explained to Mimi that he didn't know how this happened. But for now he was going to care and love the strange, new chickens just as much as he did for the regular chickens.

Something crossed Mimi's face that made Shane pause. She was rather strict and no-nonsense and her words often cut to the issues he didn't want to face, in the past.

She smiled. "They give you a lot of joy. A purpose. I'm happy for you."

Shane hadn't expected her to say that; especially since the last time she'd acknowledged his alcoholism she told Shane he needed that wake-up call.

He only nodded and continued to tell her about the blue chickens and Mimi listened intently.

He thought that smile was much like the unusual plumage; rare and pretty.


	7. Sam

One of the setbacks to living at home was that somebody knew and forgave but never forgot every time Sam screwed up. His mother seemed to be a master at this practice.

Whenever Sam did a new, dumb thing his mother was there to remind him of the time he tracked mud into the house, when he was six. Or the time when he was fourteen and turned his speakers up so loud the noise that blared out resembled a sonic boom; and during a time when Vincent had a horrible cold and headache, no less. Or when Sam got into a pretty brutal fistfight with some other boys when he was a senior in high school.

Sam never told his mother that the instigator for that fight was that those kids were taunting him, asking if his mother's name was really a title.

So when Sam accidentally dropped an egg while he was cooking a snack for Lucy he barely had enough time to catch himself. He almost demanded she take the blame but he held his tongue and waited to face the music.

"What happened," his mother demanded, "Sam-"

"It's my fault," Lucy said, quicker than Sam. "I startled him and he accidentally dropped it on the floor. I'm sorry."

"Oh, I see. Well, thank you for being honest, Lucy."

"I'll clean it up!" Sam volunteered.

At the end of it, his mother finished the cooking while Sam and Lucy cleaned up. The snack ended up as a part of dinner and Lucy joined the family for the meal.

Everything went better than Sam could've anticipated.

**A/N**: **I don't think this is a coincidence, but Jodi's name could be a reference to the military slang "Jody," a woman that cheats on her husband while he's conscripted; hence one of the "things she remembers him getting in trouble for" in the list.**


	8. Alex

Alex hadn't expected the new farmer, Jake, to be into gridball. And what's more, Jake used to be the top member of his high school gridball team. That part wasn't very surprising, since it seemed like Jake hadn't lost the muscles he gained from the sport.

To be honest, Alex was miffed. Gridball was his sport, his passion. He decided to see how this Jake could hold himself in the game.

Alex threw the ball to Jake, who caught it effortlessly. With that finesse Alex wondered why the farmer didn't grab the first gridball scholarship that came his way.

And then the thought evaporated because Jake charged forward. Alex braced himself but that didn't diminish the pain of the impact. Even so, it felt like Jake was holding back and Alex felt a split-second of fear at this restrained strength.

He landed flat on his back on the sand. Jake stood over him, holding out his hand.

"Sorry," he said. "I will buy you lunch later."

Alex nodded, because he was trying to force air into his lungs, and he took the hand. He thought, ashamed, that if the reverse happened he would've teased Jake for not being good enough.

Jake patted Alex's shoulder and then ran further away and braced himself for Alex's charge.

The phantom feeling of Jake's touch on his hand and shoulder remained - Alex found that he didn't mind.


	9. Maru

Maru looked through the telescope and wrote down the star's coordinates. It was relaxing, hearing the scribble of the pencil on paper and writing down something as simple as a star's ascension and declination.

Maru heard rustling and looked up, thinking it was Linus going into town. But it was Abraham, looking pretty dusty, and his face lit up when he saw Maru.

"Maru, thank goodness," he said. "That means I'm on the right track. I got lost in the mines."

"And you got disorientated," Maru finished. "Are you okay? Do you want some water?"

"No, no, I packed some milk in case this happened. Thank you," he replied. "What are you doing?"

"Marking down the coordinates for the stars," she said. "Do you want to join me?"

Abraham nodded and looked through the telescope.

"You know, your dad told me about the telescope," he said cheerfully. "I got us some ice cream and - oh, that star is the color of strawberry ice cream!"

Maru laughed and looked up to confirm this; she couldn't see the specific star but there was plenty more to admire.

"What do you think?" she asked.

"It's beautiful," Abraham said. He moved the telescope over to another star. "You know, I always wanted to be an astronaut. But I wasn't any good at math, you know, bad test scores and formula memorizing."

"That's too bad," Maru said. "I'm sorry. I could teach you, if you want."

"Ah, don't worry. I like my life. Being a farmer is good for me. And I met you, so I'm on the right path."

"Oh," Maru replied and she was glad that her voice didn't stammer. "Well, I'm glad to have met you, too."


	10. Haley

Haley's tears blurred her vision horribly, so much that the grains of sand became little more than a yellow blur. She was glad that Anton was on the other side of the beach, searching for the bracelet.

She took a moment to wipe her tears because it wasn't helping at all. In her state, Haley thought that she would gladly trade all of her expensive jewelry for that bracelet. She continued searching for it, occasionally kneeling when a fleck of a seashell made her heart jump in anticipation.

Finally, finally, Anton called, "I found it!" and Haley nearly tripped over the sand to run to him. The bracelet was back in her hands and she held it tightly.

Apparently it had slipped off her wrist and fallen close to Elliot's home. Anton found it under the slightly raised floorboards.

Haley said, "Thank you," over and over again but it didn't seem enough for her. So she stood on her tiptoes and kissed Anton's cheek.

Haley wished she had a camera to memorialize Anton's cute, surprised face.


	11. Harvey

It was rare to see the farmer, Remington, in this office without some large cut from a serpent or slime covering his clothes. Remington was looking around the room pensively, which was also unusual. He was usually passed out after some mishandled fight with a monster, or searching through his rucksack to see what he'd lost before leaving immediately.

Harvey got Remington's attention, by holding a tongue depressor and instructing him to say, "Ah." He looked in Remington's mouth. Healthy, pink tongue, no inflammation anywhere; Harvey said, "Perfect, and your teeth seem healthy, too."

"Okay, we're done, thanks," Remington said. He tried to get up but Harvey held up his hand.

"Hold your horses," he said. Remington reluctantly sat back down.

Harvey placed a stethoscope to Remington's heart. It was racing.

"Your heart rate is high," he said. "Is there any reason for that? Too much Joja cola?"

"Don't drink that crap," Remington said, gruffly. Perhaps he thought his tone sounded defensive because he added, "I don't like needles."

"It's okay to be nervous," Harvey said, reassuringly. "And this is just a check-up. No needles."

Remington visibly relaxed and the check-up finished with no problems. Harvey half-joking gave him a lollipop, "It's better than a Joja cola."

Remington took it anyway and thanked the doctor for his time. He added that they should spend time outside the doctor's office sometime.


	12. Penny

Penny waited in the water, only her head above the water because even the summer night air was cold. She was waiting for Ruth, to say her true feelings.

The hope rose up within like a bubble. Ruth had been so kind to her in these few years, confiding secrets and lingering glances. If the hope was skewered by rejection Penny would be crushed. She heard footsteps and Ruth emerged from the locker room. Penny breathed in deeply. She wouldn't mince her words.

"Hello," she said as Ruth got into the water. "You're probably wondering why I called you here."

"You wanted to see me in my bathing suit."

"No." Unfortunately, her voice squeaked. She cleared her throat.

"Ruth, I love you."

Penny shut her eyes tightly and, though it felt like a lifetime, a few seconds passed before a soft kiss pressed against her lips.

She opened her eyes to see Ruth smiling.

"I love you, too."

Penny tilted back into the water, overheated by the combination of the heated water and confession. Ruth pulled her back up.

"You okay?"

"I'm okay."

Ruth patted her shoulder and they swam to the edge of the pool.

After a silence, Ruth said, "I don't really want to get out."

"Oh?"

"Well, I wanna be near you. But it's freezing out there, too!"

Penny laughed. It was worth the worry to feel this happy now.

**A/N: Thank you for reading this.**


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